by Alan D. Butcher

Youth's golden promise oft by Youth is spurned;
So filled with self, life's lessons left unlearned;
Through life run riot, gaining naught, at cost,
Thus bravely lose the hours that we, too, lost.
They drink and whore, ignoring yesterday;
Today has risen with the sun, to stay;
Tomorrow, too, they say, will see them play.
They'll count the cost when they, like me, are grey.

Sometimes I meet a boy, upright and sound,
Who follows not Youth's pointless fallow round.
Against all previous thought I feel a sad...
Almost contemptuous feeling for the lad.
He's been denied the errors Youth commits!
Not worshipped at the throne where Folly sits.

I sneer: And here am I, by Youth annoyed,
By all the feckless young I would avoid;
In hectic joy they do invest their lives...
And then - a lad of common sense arrives.
And all I find within my heart to feel?
Contempt. The lad's exemplary life's not real!
He hasn't thrown his life away, you see!
Not spent his years in senseless revelry!

Relentless Truth my foolish posture mocks,
And laughing lifts the veil on paradox:
The thing I rail against I seem to prize;
And that of greater worth I criticize.

Oh! see the grey-haired paragon of yore;
Experience exudes from every pore.
Life's problems solved, from 9 to 5, no charge;
Appointments, please; his clientele is large.

Alan Butcher writes: "Books: I remember Haida (military history), Lancelot Press, and Beer and Ale, McClelland and Stewart (social history; reissued 2000, by Editio-books ); also: mag., advtg copy; ed. nat. trade mag.; writing/producing the Chase Almanac (Cdn & international editions) for 25 years; Poetry: The Windsor Review, The Danforth Review." "Experience" was originally scheduled to appear in The Danforth Review #3 (March 2000)